Almost as tall as a grizzly bear, but as approachable as a teddy bear, Ed Droste, the out front man of Grizzly Bear, is a man on the move. Grizzly Bear has been touring almost non-stop since last August and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight. Currently performing in support of its critically acclaimed sophomore effort Yellow House (Warp), Grizzly Bear will be appearing with Fiest at the The Wiltern in Los Angeles on June 29. Then, of course, it’s back on the road for the Pitchfork Music Festival and a variety of dates.

Droste sat down with me at The Vic in Chicago to talk about Grizzly Bear.

Gay & Lesbian Times: Grizzly Bear recently played festivals such as Coachella and Sasquatch, and will be coming to Chicago to perform at the upcoming Pitchfork Festival. What does it mean, as a relatively new band, to be in such musical company?

Ed Droste: It’s exciting! I find that it’s hard for me to go and see music because I’m on the road so much. So festivals are a really great place for me to see bands that I’ve always wanted to see.

GLT: That makes sense.

ED: And to meet people. Depending on the size of the band, they are in varying ranges of accessible to chat with [laughs]. Some people might just roll in a limo, jump out, play a show and run away.

GLT: You’ve actually seen that?

ED: Yeah, I saw PJ Harvey do that. And a lot of the big bands, they get all these other people to do the sound check for them. Then they just arrive, they play and they run away. But then other smaller bands hang around. But it’s so fun. It’s great to be playing among that. But festivals are weird and I never judge a band from a festival performance because it’s outdoors and people are talking and everyone’s hot. It’s not the best place to appreciate something with nuance unless it’s a dance band, then it’s great. But for some of the softer stuff, like us … sometimes I wonder whether it’s really beneficial. We do it because it’s a lot of fun, but whether we’re really winning fans without mellow stuff….

GLT: How do you think you are going over in that type of venue?

ED: It’s not the best for us. An outdoor festival is not the best. We try to amp up the songs a little bit for that kind of setting. Generally speaking, we’re best viewed in a club or a theater.

GLT: Has Grizzly Bear ever been invited to or would you ever play a GLBT music festival such as Idapalooza or Alt Q?

ED: Yeah, I’m sure if it was incorporated into our tour schedule. It’s not like we identify as a gay band. I’m the only gay member. I think there was something in Seattle that we were invited to do, but we just didn’t have time or it didn’t work out.

GLT: Grizzly Bear is on tour with Feist until the end of June. How has that been?

ED: It’s been so much fun. She and her band are all amazingly nice; great vibes. They have a totally different audience than we do, so it’s great to play for new people. She’s just exploded – she’s huge now. It’s really cool.

GLT: Since late August of 2006, Grizzly Bear has been touring on a consistent basis. Do you feel as if you have been set adrift or do you enjoy the sensation of being on the road?

ED: I definitely like being home a lot and I think I’m ready for a big break. But at the same time, sometimes I get restless at home, so it’s really nice to travel. And I like performing a lot. It’s really fun. I mean, I don’t like driving and there are a lot of elements of touring that I don’t like. But it all pays off because the performance part of it is really fun.

GLT: Are there cities where Grizzly Bear plays that you feel they get the band more than other places, or is there a universal openness to the band’s uncategorizable style?

ED: Chicago has been a good city for us. Generally speaking, the major metropolitan areas are most receptive. New York and L.A. and Seattle and San Francisco and Chicago and Boston. The South is a little slower to pick up on us, but Atlanta has been good, and Austin. We played a show in Baton Rouge for a couple hundred people and they were a great, fun, kind-of-rowdy crowd.

GLT: Has Grizzly Bear been playing any new material while on tour, and if so, how has it been going over with the audience?

ED: We play two songs from the first album and maybe four from the new one and a cover. We have some new material, but it’s a little louder and it doesn’t work for this tour. We’re trying to do the mellow set for Feist.

GLT: Along with Grizzly Bear, artists such as Chris Garneau, Joel Gibb of The Hidden Cameras and Antony of Antony and the Johnsons are breaking the gay male musician mold.

ED: I’m surprised you didn’t mention Final Fantasy or Patrick Wolf, and the lead singer from Deerhunter, Bradford Cox.

GLT: Those are other good suggestions. But you’re all essentially breaking the mold, or reinventing it, if you will.

ED: What is the mold? Are you going to use Rufus [Wainwright] as an example [laughs]?

GLT: I was going to say Bob Mould, but the difference is that you [and Rufus and some of the others] have all been out right from the start.

ED: I think it’s funny that a lot of our straight fans don’t realize that I’m gay because they don’t read the gay publications. And the straight publications don’t feel the need to write about it, which is nice. I don’t care if they do, but it’s not really defining of the music.

GLT: But do you see yourself fitting into the realm of queer musicians?

ED: I think anyone can fit in. I don’t think it’s an exclusive scene. There are tons of different types of gay musicians that are doing music. Dear Hunter is a total shoe-gazer/My Bloody Valentine type of thing. Patrick Wolf is very theatrical. And we’re just sort of folky. So, sure, why not? I fit in. I’m not stressed about it [laughs].

GLT: Would you say that you get an undue amount of attention from the Bear community due to the name of the band?

ED: Yeah. There’s this site called Bears Gone Wild that did a little Q&A with us. But I don’t think that I’ve noticed that our shows have a huge bear population. Maybe I’m just not aware of it. Maybe they are coming. I have no idea. I think there are definitely some bear fans, and I’ve discussed it with a few bears.

GLT: You’ve described Horn of Plenty as being a more “gay-centric” album, while the song “Plans” on Yellow House is the only one of a queer nature on the disc. Will the next Grizzly Bear album strike more of a balance between gay and non-gay centered material?

ED: I don’t know. There’s really no way to say. I kind of like vague lyrics. Sometimes they are gay, but they’re not overt. A lot of the lyrics on Yellow House Dan [Rossen] wrote and “My Love’s Another Kind” could be interpreted that way, and I think he’s very open to that interpretation, too, even though he was thinking of it as something else. That’s why I relate to it when I sing those lyrics because I’ll sing those parts with him on the song. I think we all are into the vague nature of it.

GLT: I’m glad that you mentioned Yellow House because the album was extremely well received. Were you prepared for that?

ED: Uh, no [laughs]! It was very exciting. I was very pleased. I didn’t think people were going to get it. I don’t think it’s necessarily an immediate pop album. I think it demands multiple listens and actual attention given to it, as opposed to background music. It could just sort of wash by, if you weren’t paying attention, and I really couldn’t fault someone for listening to it that way. I have plenty of CDs that I enjoy as background music. What I’ve discovered from talking to people who really love the album is that they’ll be, like, “I didn’t really get it at first, and then I came back to it a month or two later and it really grew on me, and I discovered all these things about it that I like,” which I prefer to someone loving it immediately and getting sick of it.